Panic is over at the partnership but there's still a long way to go before the crisis is behind it

Is the crisis over at the John Lewis Partnership? Not yet. A pre-tax profit of £56m was a big improvement from a thumping loss of £234m last time, but remember that the group's definition of a sustainable annual return is £400m.

- Nils Pratley

That isn't scheduled to be achieved until the financial year that ends in January 2028. There is still a long way to go.

But the state of panic that infected the place a year ago does seem to have passed. Back then, the chair, Sharon White, was scaring everybody with loose talk about bringing in outside investors, which sounded like a threat to the 100% employee-owned model.

Such speculative thinking has been canned, thankfully. The balance sheet is in better shape now that cashflow is moving in the right direction. It lends credibility to the claim that the partnership has "all" the funding it needs for the next four years of investment. Good.